Three Imaginary Girls are waiting for the doll house to burn down

Well, I’m back in Seattle after an exhilarating and exhausting week. I had taken a much-needed vacation and gotten back just in time to go TIG’s incredible Top of the Croc show (which I recommended here). With the weather just now starting to improve, it looks like it would be the right time to relax (and save money for Record Store Day next Saturday), but this week it’s not going to happen. There’s just way too much going on. Somehow, I think I ended up booking myself for shows every single night of the week.

Here are a few places you might find me at:

Head Like a Kite and Wild Orchid Children at the Crocodile, Friday, April 10

I’ve really admired Head Like a Kite for quite a while, and their album from last year, There is Loud Laughter Everywhere is a very solid album. The band has some great beats, kept in time with a really talented drummer in Trent Moorman and they’ve always delivered a great live show. This one promises to be a great, multimedia experience. I had gotten a press release forwarded to me that says that HLAK is premiering a new film based on one of their songs, “We Were So Entangled” that “the steamy affair of two impassioned Barbie dolls hell bent on adventure. Sex, fire, Superman, Barbie dolls, and a car chase.” Adding: “Sound weird? Wait until the doll house burns down.”

As though there couldn’t be any more you could want, there’s also Wild Orchid Children, the younger-brother punk band to my favorite Seattle band, Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground (made up of members of the most benevolent Weathered Underground).

Here’s a video to a remix of HLAK’s “We Were Son Entangled”. I’m trying to figure out where the flaming doll house fits in here:

Motorik at the Funhouse, Thursday, April 16

Motorik, which translates from German as “motor skill”, is a Krautrock term for the 4/4 beat — but it is also the name of an excellent, local goth-rock band. Borrowing from bands like Joy Division, Bauhaus and Echo and the Bunnymen, the sound is instantly accessible and familiar — but they still rock. I saw them at a Factory Records tribute night flawlessly executing Joy Division’s “She Lost Control” — which is no small feat considering that the song has its own legacy and has aged well over twenty-five years. Still, Motorik made it look seamless. This Thursday they’re at the Funhouse, playing stuff from their recently released debut album Klang!.